


With Decorum

by Artemis1000



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rhaegar Won, Arranged Marriage, Courtly Love, F/M, Politics, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-02 03:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16297670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: Love is built stone by stone through hard work, her mother had once told Sansa. She wouldn't understand these words until her family was dead and White Walkers roamed the land, and she found herself wedded to a dragon prince through duty and necessity.Their union between an independent North and the Targaryen-ruled Six Kingdoms might yet turn the tide in the war, but right now it would take hard work to build love and trust with the bloodshed between their families still on everyone's minds. Amidst war and scarcity, Sansa and Jon worked on their future, day for day, stone for stone.





	With Decorum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teethandstars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teethandstars/gifts).



“A trueborn wife is loyal to her lord husband above all,” Septa Mordane had told Sansa when she was a little girl.

She thought often of her Septa’s many pearls of wisdom when she climbed the First Keep and gazed upon the Stark and Targaryen banners fluttering side by side in the icy winds of true Northern winter.

Septa Mordane was gone, and Winterfell had almost gone with her.

And Sansa? Sansa had not been very loyal to the Bolton bastard who had fancied he could force her to become his wife, least of all when his own dogs had torn him apart. He really should have known better than to think he could threaten a Stark with an animal so closely related to wolves. Maybe he would have made a wiser choice had he bothered to learn more about her than how she could be useful to his ambitions, such as that she had tamed a direwolf when she was a girl not even flowered.

There had been no Stark flags flying after the Boltons seized Winterfell.

A gust of wind even icier than the ones before tugged at Sansa’s hair and the thick fur cloak she wore. It was a cloak befitting the Queen of the North she was, though nobody quite knew what the title was worth these days.

“Sansa?”

She turned, frowning already at the disturbance of the only privacy she got these days, when it registered who stood in front of her and her heart skipped a beat first for joy, then another for fear.

Jon Targaryen standing right in front of her in the flesh, leagues from where she believed him to be.

Her fingers tightened on the clasp of her cloak. “Jon?” she asked, her measured voice betraying just a hint of shakiness. “I didn’t learn of your return.”

Which should be an impossibility. An army couldn’t return unnoticed by the lady of the keep, even if nobody thought to inform her of her lord husband’s return. Her second thought was one of ire – that she hadn’t been there to greet him went against every piece of proper etiquette she had been taught, and she was certain it was no different in the South.

She clung to that thought – it was easier to think of how he had inadvertently made her look a neglectful wife than to think of the alarming whys and hows of his return.

Jon looked pale, he still wore his traveling cloak over the red-and-black armor bearing the Targaryen coat of arms. He looked as if he hadn’t slept or eaten in days and he couldn’t bring himself to meet Sansa’s eyes. “Forgive me, my Lady. I didn’t mean to scare you by showing up like I’m a ghost.”

Sansa pursed her lips in ladylike disapproval, feeling much like her mother at her sternest in this moment. To think of her, of how she would have handled being frightened and unable to show it, made her feel a little stronger herself. Her voice didn’t tremble anymore when she rebuked, “You know well there are matters of decorum to consider, my Lord.”

He winced under her stern look, more like a chastened boy than the royal prince he was. “Decorum. Of course.”

“Decorum,” she echoed, a hint of a challenge to her voice.

Their eyes met and not for the first time, Sansa marveled how Stark Jon looked. His father may be a dragon king but he looked every bit the wolf he was on his deceased mother’s side; it was visible proof that he was of the North as much as of the South. She had taken comfort in that when the raven from King’s Landing arrived, informing her that the Targaryens insisted on a betrothal that had been dictated to the Starks when Robert’s Rebellion failed.

He gave a wan hint of a smile and turned away first.

Sansa stood there for a moment longer, frozen in indecision, frozen in this moment. She let her eyes wander beyond the walls of Winterfell, and wondered if Bran and Rickon and Arya were truly still alive, if they were somewhere out there and thinking of her, too.  Then she caught herself, remembering her place and her duties.

Her husband had returned from war and she still didn’t know why he had returned alone and in secret, but all of that could wait until she had ensured he would be fed, bathed and had his injuries seen to.

Maybe all these whisperers who spoke of her being a cold wife spoke true but none would ever be able to say she was no dutiful wife.

 

Jon thawed a little once he sat in their solar, cradling a large bowl of hearty stew, which was the richest food they had to offer in Winterfell these days.

These days, even the lord’s table served watery broth with a few sad, wrinkled pieces of root vegetables more often than not.

“Thank you,” Jon said quietly, and when Sansa looked up from her embroidery with an unspoken question in her eyes, he added, “for ensuring I will have a reprieve before I have to face… everyone.”

Sansa dropped her gaze again, back to studying the handkerchief she was embroidering with tiny, delicate stitches of silk thread. Curled up by her feet, Lady nuzzled her legs as if she sensed Sansa’s discomfort. “It is my pleasure.” She kept her eyes on her stitches for a moment longer before she dropped her hands to her lap, giving him a stern look. “Are you now going to explain why you returned alone and in secret, Jon?”

This right here, this wasn’t proper decorum. Then again, their marriage was unconventional in most ways.

For one thing, it rarely was the wife who wore the crown, shaky though her authority might have been in these war-torn days.

The independent kingdom in the North had done well for itself after Robert’s Rebellion failed. After Rhaegar had taken his father’s throne, he had had no desire to keep waging war against Lyanna’s family, a war which could only have ended by wiping out his youngest’s maternal bloodline. Legend had it that it had been Lyanna’s dying wish that he make peace with the Starks. So he had done, or something resembling peace anyway. The Targaryens humored the North’s claims of independence for however long it would suit them, with the promise of a marriage between Jon and the firstborn Stark daughter to ensure their fates would remain tied together for another generation.

By the time Sansa was born, the North had already believed the Targaryens would choose to quietly forget about the betrothal. Albeit the youngest of Rhaegar’s children and of contestably legitimate birth, Jon was still too valuable to waste on a bride without titles or lands and ever more brothers to inherit ahead of her, a bride whose royal lineage was barely even acknowledged as such in King’s Landing.

Then the Long Night had started and the Boltons had wiped out what Starks hadn’t been killed by the White Walkers, and Sansa’s hand had suddenly come with a crown.

With Winterfell in Bolton hands and the White Walkers coming, Sansa had been in no position to refuse when King Rhaegar informed her it was time to renew the bonds between Targaryens and Starks.

Lady gave another chuff, effectively pulling her out of her thoughts.

Her husband had been silent too long, Sansa realized with a deepening frown. “You are not the husband I would have chosen for myself,” she said bluntly, “but I like to believe we have always been honest with another. Please be honest with me now. Whatever the news are, I can handle them.”

Jon kept staring into the fire for long moments before turning back to her. He looked so much older than his years. “The counterattack failed,” he said quietly. “I lost most of my men.” He pressed his lips together, his fingers clenched around his spoon in a death grip. “I returned with just two guards, we can’t have word of our defeat spread before I have spoken to the lords. I need more troops, everything they have left. Our half-hearted attempts just serve to swell the ranks of the dead.”

She should have been focused on Jon’s concerns and battle plans but everything he said after the first sentence just rushed past her, meaningless for the moment as she struggled to remember how to breathe.

She had hoped. She had thought… But the moment he returned quietly, she had known, hadn’t she? Deep down, she had known. He wouldn’t return to Winterfell in secret if there was anything to celebrate.

“Sansa?” His hands were suddenly on hers, his bowl of soup abandoned on the table. They cradled her tightly clenched hands and then he abandoned his chair altogether, kneeling before her and making an indignant Lady retreat to join Ghost by the fire. “Sansa, look at me.”

It wasn’t a command, just a plea. Her eyes found his, she had never been able to deny Jon anything when he was so earnest.

He had always been earnest. He was nothing like what Sansa expected from a Targaryen prince.

“I vowed I would protect your lands and I will. Just…” His hands tightened on hers. They were calloused and warm, so much warmer than her own. Maybe it was the hot bowl he had been cradling, or maybe it was his dragon blood. A younger Sansa would have bet on the dragon blood, now she had learned to be realistic. “I need you to trust me. Just like you did when we retook Winterfell.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on breathing against the ice that was overtaking her. It felt like the ice that had gripped her on the day she walked back into Winterfell, put herself into Roose Bolton’s hands and her fate into the hands of a fiancé she had never met.

“You kept your promise.”

“Of course I did. I had vowed I would come for you.”

He had, and on the day that Roose Bolton had planned for her to wed Ramsay, she had stood under the Heart Tree with Jon Targaryen instead.

Sansa opened her eyes, looking again at their hands. Slowly, ever so slowly and cautiously, she interlaced her fingers with his. She swallowed hard. “You have always come for me.”

“Always.”

She lifted her gaze to meet Jon’s eyes. They were kind and they were a Stark’s eyes.

When she had wed him, her advisors had hoped they would be able to appeal to his Stark blood but Sansa herself had been afraid to let herself hope and see anything but a haughty Targaryen prince. And he? She didn’t even know what he had seen when he looked at her. She had never asked and he had never offered.

A soft knock on the door jarred Sansa out of her thoughts and the strange mood she had been caught in. Jon seemed equally startled, his eyes remained wide and startled when he retook his seat.

Her hands felt colder, no longer cradling his.

 

His days in Winterfell ought to have been a reprieve for Jon but in truth, they were as hectic for him as for Sansa. Long hours were spent in debate with the lords of the North currently residing here, then with every new one arriving. It was hard work convincing them all over again to believe in him, the son of the man they still blamed for every ill that had befallen the North since Rhaegar crowned Lyanna his Queen of Love and Beauty.

Sansa could have demanded their obedience but she knew her word would help Jon little once he was fighting by the Wall. He needed men who would follow him out of loyalty not out of fear. Reluctant vassals, they would just be waiting for the first sign of weakness which permitted them to rescind their vows of fealty and abandon Jon to another defeat.

So she sat and drank with them, and talked and argued, but most importantly, she worked hand in hand with Jon to convince their lords. They ruled well together, they always did.

It was when Jon was here in Winterfell, at her side, that she remembered why she considered herself a lucky wife for all that they hadn’t married for love. It was then that she remembered what her mother had told her about love being built stone by stone through hard work, and it was then that she believed.

“I didn’t lie when I told the lords I have faith in you,” she said quietly when they walked the Godswood after a long day stuck in overheated parlors and studies. She peered up at him, a small, mournful smile on her lips. “I know you doubt. I can read it in your eyes. But my faith in you holds true.”

Their conversations in the Godswood were always quiet, barely above whispers though they didn’t fear prying ears out here. It just felt right to Sansa, and maybe Jon felt it, too, or maybe he followed her lead in this as he did in most things Northern.

“Didn’t you tell me when we wed that you have little faith left to put in anyone or anything?” Jon remarked, his voice just as quiet and soft, barely above hushed.

Sansa gave him a sharp, suspicious look, only to discover a glint of humor lurking in the corner of his eyes when their eyes met. The corners of her mouth curled upwards before she could help herself. “Your memory fails you, my Lord, I warned you I find it exhausting to muster faith when I have so little left to give.”

“And am I worth the exhaustion?”

“My Lord…” Her pretense of exasperation just made the humor in his eyes grow, and her own smile grew in turn. They walked closer, Jon and her, still not touching until they did. Just their arms brushing, then he hesitated visibly before offering his arm to her. “Thank you, my Lord,” she responded, “how chivalrous of you.”

Jon chuckled.

Sansa felt her cheeks flush even in the chill of true winter. She had rarely heard him laugh, her solemn husband was nothing like the tales of jolly Rhaegar, and yet when she did hear it, his laugh never failed to warm her. She opened her mouth to speak, yet words wouldn’t come. Humiliated, she snapped it shut again and faced straight forward.

“You make it easy to be chivalrous.” Jon’s voice was quiet again and heart-wrenchingly solemn.

Sansa listened to the freshly fallen snow crunch beneath their feet with every step. She swallowed hard.

“Do you miss the South?” she asked just as the silence was on the cusp to becoming uncomfortable, and it suddenly struck her that she had never asked before. She had been too frightened an honest answer might wound her, maybe, and had covered it up with indifference.

Jon’s grip on her arm tightened, pulling her a little closer. He didn’t seem aware of it. “It’s not the life I had expected.”

She nodded to encourage him, not saying a word herself. So much was a given. Back when their betrothal was arranged, it had been intended for her to move South to be his wife and lady of his keep.

“Every time a Northerner looks at me, I can see they are hoping to find my mother in me. But I never met her. I don’t know how to be a Stark for them.”

Sansa pulled him to sit by the crying face of the Heart Tree they had wed under, sitting in the snow like children sharing secrets.

“My mother was from the South, too,” she told him, which was no secret, of course, but it still felt meaningful at this moment. “She married the Warden of the North, then Robert’s Rebellion failed and the North split off, and she became more of a stranger in a strange land than she had ever expected as we returned to our old ways.”

She reached for the face carved into the tree, caressing it with gloved fingers. “She prayed to the Seven until the very end. She never converted, no matter how high the pressure on her. Father wished to build her a Sept but it was considered improper, an unfortunate signal to send South. Still, she was a Tully and she taught me to live by her family’s words as much as my father taught me to live by his.” She turned her head, studying Jon’s face. Her husband’s, her cousin’s face. It was the face of a kind man, the kind of man she had always hoped to one day call husband. She just hadn’t thought her Targaryen fiancé could be this man…

Sansa took a deep breath, reminding herself of her courage, of the wolf she was, and reached for his hands. “I can help you be a Stark, but promise me you will never forget to be yourself.” Again, she fell silent, as she had so often before when they almost spoke of the many things that remained unsaid between them. “I like the man you are, Jon. I wouldn’t want you to be anyone else.”

Jon gave her a smile. It was beautiful. “Not even a Stark?”

“Not even…” She bit down on her bottom lip, gaze lowered in chagrin. “I would like you to be a Stark. But I believe you are one already, in all the ways which matter most to me.”

For a moment he looked at her so intensely that Sansa’s heart skipped another beat. For a moment, she was certain he would lean in and kiss her. Then the moment had passed and she exhaled, finding herself oddly disappointed that he had not.

The snowfall grew heavier and the wind picked up, sending flurries of snow up to dance through the air.

“We should return,” Jon said.

“We should.”

They stood and they left, but they didn’t let go of the other’s hand until they stepped inside the Great Keep.

 

“Here we are. The crypt of Winterfell,” Sansa announced needlessly.

She watched the torchlight dance over Jon’s familiar solemn Stark face. With the dim light concealing his discomfort, dressed in furs in Northern style, he looked like he belonged here.

He had been quiet as they crossed the courtyard to reach the entrance to the crypts, had wordlessly accepted a torch from Sansa and remained quiet when she led him down the spiral staircase.

Sansa would have to admit she had been glad for his silence, for she didn’t know what to say. Jon had never asked to visit his maternal ancestors and Sansa had never offered. His mother wasn’t entombed here, so she had assumed the crypts held nothing of interest to Jon – nothing but reminders of the bloodshed between Starks and Targaryens.

“I never liked the crypt when I was a child,” she said, just to fill the silence before it could become too powerful to break. “We played here when we were children but I preferred nicer, warmer places. It wasn’t until…” It had been a long time since she had last let herself cry and yet tears suddenly choked her, making her fall silent lest she betray herself with a sound of weakness.

She turned her back on Jon, striding deeper into the crypts. Her steps remained firm and sure even in her grief, confidence hard won during hundreds of times she had walked these paths.

Her feet wanted to take her to her family, yet she refused, instead taking the less traveled path to Lyanna’s statue.

When she finally came to a halt in front of the stone statue and waited for Jon to catch up, she almost wished she had taken him to see her parents and siblings instead, or simply given him the historical tour as courtesy demanded. She tucked her hands into her sleeves, head ducked. She had let herself be driven by emotion, an unforgivable sin for a lady of her standing.

Jon followed slowly, slow enough that Sansa wondered for a moment if she had lost him or if he had simply changed his mind.

Yet when he joined her, he didn’t hesitate to stand right behind her or place a hand on her shoulder. It felt heavy to her, but heavy in the way that all sturdy things were. “So this is it…”

She nodded, keeping quiet and simply being there, sturdy in her own way. When she turned her head, she saw emotions she couldn’t quite pinpoint flicker over Jon’s face. She thought she could make out longing, and maybe pain.

“I visited her often when I lived in King’s Landing.”

Sansa nodded again. “Only Kings in the North and Lords of Winterfell received statues, but Father broke tradition for Lyanna and…” Your uncle, the one your grandfather murdered. She couldn’t say it.

“Brandon,” Jon finished for her. He squeezed Sansa’s shoulder tightly.

She leaned back into him and his hand slipped from her shoulder to her waist. “He said there ought to be something of Lyanna in Winterfell’s crypt.” Actually, he had often said that Lyanna’s remains belonged in Winterfell, and the Northern Lords had been blunter yet in saying that Rhaegar had no right to hold on to his stolen bride even in death. She had grown up hearing many blunt things said about King Rhaegar.

Jon’s arms slipped properly around her, pulling her tight against his chest. It was the closest they had been since the bedding, and Sansa could feel her heart speed up. “I’m grateful for it. Now I can still visit with her.”

She placed her hands on top of his, folded on her stomach, and closed her eyes. Let herself feel, let herself enjoy the moment, Jon’s warmth, his presence. Even in the chill of the crypt, she felt warm in his company. Was it in bad taste to feel happy in such a dark place? Somehow, this was a lesson on etiquette nobody had ever thought to teach her.

“You brought flowers for her, did you not?” she gently reminded Jon before she might find herself doing something which would be just inappropriate in a place like this. Such as turning around in his arms and looking into his eyes, and kissing him.

He started with a murmur of, “yes, yes!” and released her with obvious reluctance.

He pulled a few dainty flowers out of a pocket, they were crumpled now. Sansa felt colder already without his arms around her. “I’ll leave you now,” she whispered. She felt as reluctant to walk away as he had been to release her but come morning Jon would be returning to the fight against the Night King and she owed him the opportunity to spend time with his mother.

Like she always did when she came down here, she didn’t leave until she had visited the tombs of her parents and Robb. Like every time she had to leave them behind in the dark, walking away felt a little bit like losing them all over again.

It was painful – but Sansa Stark had long since learned to take strength from pain.

When Jon finally joined her by the doors of the crypt, she stood tall and firm, no hint of her loss to be seen.

She hesitated for a moment, searching his face, suddenly uncertain of her welcome, or if the tender moment they had shared at Lyanna’s empty tomb had meant anything at all. Jon’s eyes found hers, giving the answer, and she reached for his hand.

His fingers closed around hers. He had been so cautious always, so mindful not to overstep, but now he pulled her close for the second time within a day. “Sansa…” It sounded like a plea to her ears.

Her heart was racing. She lifted her head, ran her fingers through his black hair, and waited with bated breath for him to kiss her.

Instead, Jon gently pressed his forehead to hers. “Sansa,” he whispered again, sounding so pained.

Sansa’s lips found Jon’s and silenced his plea.

 

Each and every day had been painfully long and yet when the time came for Jon to leave north again, it felt to Sansa as if barely any time had passed since their cold reunion in the First Keep.

They had retreated to the same place, their last moments of privacy before they would step onto the courtyard to say their official goodbyes. Down there, under all these prying, scrutinizing eyes, they would be exchanging the courtesies expected of them.

Here and now…

“I’m glad we have this moment to ourselves,” Sansa said quietly.

“So am I.”

Somehow they had ended up in exactly the same place. Before she knew it, Sansa’s eyes found the Stark and Targaryen banners again.

This time, Jon didn’t hesitate to step closer. There was the barest moment of hesitation before he wrapped his arm around her waist, and none at all before she rested her head on his shoulder. Her hand found his again and held on tight.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” she said quietly. Her voice didn’t shake but it sounded brittle even to her own ears.

Jon pulled her tighter against his side and she could feel him nuzzle her hair. “Thank you for not asking me to stay.” He was whispering again, just like when they were speaking in the Godswood.

“I would never make impossible demands of you.” She closed her eyes tightly and inhaled his scent. “It’s why I won’t ask you to promise that you will return. I only ask you to try.” She exhaled. “But I ask you to try.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She placed a hand on the back of his neck and he ducked down obediently, meeting her halfway in a kiss just as desperate as the first one they had shared yesterday and every one that had followed.

They had been driven by the knowledge of running out of time and Sansa found herself driven by this again now, by the desperate need to fill their last minutes together with Jon and the feelings she could finally permit herself to call love, if only in the privacy of her own mind.

“We wasted so much time,” she murmured, eyes downcast.

“Not wasted. No time spent with you could be wasted.”

She chuckled shakily as she looked up, an equally shaky smile on her lips. Jon looked just as solemn as he had sounded, and of course he was solemn. She didn’t know what she had expected, but it still made her heart clench with a strange, wistful need. She cupped his cheek, her thumb caressing his skin. “Kiss me again.”

Jon obeyed.

Their kiss started out sweet and gentle, quickly turning desperate as they realized it might be their last kiss for months or for forever. Sansa shoved the grim thought away and clung to him harder.

She was breathless when they parted, still so close their noses were touching, the clouds of condensation mingling with every puff of breath they exhaled.

Jon’s thumb brushed gently over her cheek. “I’ll return to you, Sansa. I don’t know what the future will bring but we will face it together.”

She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together for just a moment of weakness until the tightness in her throat had passed. Then she opened her eyes and smiled sadly. “I thought we said no empty promises.”

“It’s not a promise, it’s just…” He clenched his jaw, visibly fighting with himself for a moment. Then he shook his head. “No. I want it to be a promise. I know I can’t truly promise to return but I want to.” He hesitated for another moment before settling on another vow of, “I will do my best to return to you, Sansa.”

She nodded solemnly. It was the only vow he could truly give her. War didn’t care for your heart’s desire, she wouldn’t have been able to put trust in any other vow anyway and Jon was wise in knowing it. Every loved one she had lost had wanted to return or never leave her, yet war and betrayal had taken the choice from them.

She cradled her hands in his as she said, “And I will make sure there is still a home for you to return to.” It would be a battle, too, with hunger and fear gnawing at the loyalty of their bannermen. They had lost Winterfell once already.

“A home,” Jon echoed, eyes so painfully soft as he regarded her.

“Our home.”

Below them, they heard the impatient whinnying of horses, the clatter of armors and swords, the chatter of the men gathered to leave for war. Many more would join Jon as he made his way towards the Wall but it was still an impressive number of men leaving Winterfell today.

Sansa felt the cold reach her through her thick furs and wools. She forcefully tore her mind away from the moment of peace they had shared. “It is time for you to leave.”

“It is.” His hand lingered on her face.

She smiled, though there was a mournful edge to it now. It was the only grief she would let herself show where he could see it, she decided. She wouldn’t burden him with her fears along with his own. “The next time you return, I will be waiting for you.”

Jon returned her smile without hesitation. “I know.”

She leaned in to steal one last kiss before they had to return to their duties for good but even as she braced herself to let Jon go, she knew they would both fight to keep their vows to another.

He would return, and she would be waiting for him, they would not have it any other way. Just this once, fate would have to bow to the Starks.

 


End file.
